An Arts-Filled, Tasty And Sometimes-Loopy Jaunt Through Life

Greetings, Earthlings. My name is Edgar Reewright. I’m an editor. And I’m writing to you on bended knee, as I will explain a few paragraphs down the line.

Over the years I’ve worked at The New Yorker, The New York Times and, most recently, Playboy. Prestigious jobs they were, not to mention excellent distributors of cash and benefits to yours truly. But as we know, life can throw curveballs and spitballs at any of us at any time. And come my way they did.

I won’t go into too much detail. Let’s just say that I didn’t do myself any favors when, after having devoured two bottles of Jack Daniels at a dazzling party at the Playboy Mansion in 2014, I made a pass — actually, more like 15 passes — at Hugh Hefner’s wife. When I came to a few hours later I discovered myself to be robed in a Playboy Bunny outfit and draped over a traffic light, 20 feet above ground, on Sunset Boulevard. Hef’s boys don’t mess around. Needless to say, my career in big-time journalism was over.

Thanks are due, therefore, to the blogging gods of small-time journalism. A prime example of which is Neil Scheinin’s blog. The one you’re staring at right now. Neil fancies himself to be a writer. What the hell, I always say, let him believe what he wishes. He’s hardly the only delusional collection of skin and bones traipsing around among us.

Anyway, the flimsy quality of Neil’s opuses doesn’t mean a fig to me. What does matter is the paycheck that Neil sends my way weekly. Seven hundred and fifty dollars ain’t bad dough to someone in my situation. Damn good thing I answered Neil’s ad (“Help! Dork desperately in need of editorial assistance,” it read) in the January 2015 issue of All Praises To The Blogosphere. The rest is history. Or something along that line.

Here’s why I’m writing this article: I’m very, very worried. Neil has disappeared. Foul play? Nah, there’s no evidence of that. By his own volition? You can bet the house on it. The louse didn’t even have a story-in-waiting to be published this week. Who does he think he is, skipping a week of writing? His audience probably could care less, but me? I care like crazy. And that’s because Neil not only put down his story-writing pen, he also put down his check-writing pen. I have $236 dollars to my name. If Neil doesn’t come out of hiding, or wherever he is, and pay me my weekly allowance . . . hell, I don’t even want to think about it.

Readers of Neil’s blog, I’m pleading with you to try and find him. His wife Sandy has looked high and low for him and has reported Neil’s absence to the authorities, but so far they’ve come up with nothing.

Me, I think there’s a chance that, in search of inspiration and beneficial aura fields, he’s gone to visit one of his blogging buddies, people who, unlike him, truly fall into the category of writer. And who not only churn out essays with regularity but have penned books. K E Garland, for instance, whose The Unhappy Wife is a strong look at marriage and relationships. And Andrew Ferguson. He wrote The Wrong Box, a romp of a murder mystery filled with sex, laughs and a twisty plot. Neil has told me more than once that he too would like to create a book one of these days. Yeah, right. Believe me, holding your breath waiting for that to happen would be a mistake of the highest order.

Send out the search parties! Spread the word on Twitter and Facebook! Neil is out there somewhere and he needs to return home. His wife will do just fine without him, sure. But not me. My bank account is staring at me with pitiful eyes. He better come back! And pronto. Here’s a photo of Neil. It’s the only one I have. It’s from a recent New Year’s Eve, and maybe will be an aid in finding him. Say what you will about Neil, you’ve got to admire his taste in leis.

I sympathise with your plight and need for a pay check. Maybe Neil has gone to one of those shacks on Cape Cod that he loves where famous writers worked. Could he be writing that book? Good luck with your search and editing future.

The lei is a clue. I will see if I can find a few residual flower children out here in San Francisco and ask if they have seen Neil. Of course, they aren’t likely to know a lot about paychecks . . . Nor do many of us Seekers & Free Spirits all these decades later. But our hearts are all in the right place.

I’ve heard there’s a triangular shaped area in that region where a number of bloggers and keyboard warriors have all dissappeared to in order to seek inspiration and be reunited with their salty-dog lost muse.

A blog or two ago Neil wrote about his love for New York, rekindled when he met up with an old friend there a few weeks back. I suspect he’s hiding out in a Lower East Side speakeasy, spending the last of your pay cheque on martinis and spaghetti in a futile attempt to recapture his lost youth. You are right to be angry about this but I think, if you’re honest, you can relate.

Dear Edgar,
When you find out where my husband Neil is, please tell him I miss him and hope he comes home soon. But if he plans to come home tonight, please ask him to wait until after 10pm. The male strippers will have left by then.
Thanks,
Sandy

My guess is he is hanging out at the restaurant at the end of the galaxy, and will be back home after he watches the end of the Universe. No need to worry, time travel merely results in hangover-like symptoms.

Edgar, August is prime vacation time, and Neil did mention something about driving to Battle Creek, Michigan, to sample a flight of Cheez-Its at the Kellogg’s outlet. Let the man enjoy his simple pleasures!

Edgar, have you looked under the bed? Or up in Neil’s backyard tree? How about under his deck? Really, he could be under the deck where it’s nice and cool, and he can spend some “alone” time getting away from people like you. Let him have some peace, for Chri___sake! The man is probably busy working on his book and that takes mental strength and a drink or two. He’ll emerge from hiding when he’s ready.

Mr Reewright, we have your Neil Scheinin here. He is well and writing – for now. However, for his safe return we require $1 million of your American currency, in a brown envelope, at a location to be shared with you when you answer this message. You have 48 hours. After that, we start sending his adjectives back to you one at a time. After that, his adverbs. Don’t make us remove his punctuation or it could all get messy.

P.S. What are Cheez-O’s? We do not have such abominations in our country. He keeps asking for them.

He’s gone, live with it. Se up a commune of writers like yourself, whose pay-checks are diminishing as I write, or have ceased altogether, and get working. Or maybe, as my mother would say, get a proper job. If that fails, hit the Jack Daniels again, but if I’m joining your commune it will have to be a gin and tonic.